Cursive

Cursive, also known as longhand, script, joined-up
writing, joint writing, running writing, or handwriting is any style of penmanship in
which the symbols of the language are written in a conjoined and/or flowing manner, generally
for the purpose of making writing faster. However, not all cursive copybooks join all
letters. Formal cursive is generally joined, but casual
cursive is a combination of joins and pen lifts. In the Persian, Arabic, Latin, and Cyrillic
alphabets, many or all letters in a word are connected, sometimes making a word one single
complex stroke. While the terms cursive or script are popular
in the United States for describing this style of writing the Latin script, this term is
rarely used elsewhere. Joined-up writing is more popular in the United
Kingdom, Ireland and India. The term handwriting is common in the United
States, United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In Australia, the term running-writing is
also popularly applied. In reference, cursive is often said to have
been “written”, as opposed to having been “printed” in traditional block format. Cursive is distinct from block letters, in
which the letters of a word are unconnected and in Roman/Gothic letterform rather than
joined-up script. This style may also be called “printscript”,
“print writing”, “block writing”. A distinction is also made between looped
cursive penmanship, in which some ascenders and descenders of cursive have loops which
provide for joins, and cursive italic penmanship, which is derived from chancery cursive, and
which uses non-looped joins or no joins. There are no joins from g, j, q or y, and
a few other joins are discouraged. Italic penmanship became popular in the 15th-century
Italian Renaissance. The term “italic” as it relates to handwriting
is not to be confused with typed letters that slant forward. Many, but not all, letters in the handwriting
of the Renaissance were joined, as most are today in cursive italic. In Hebrew cursive and Roman cursive, the letters
are not connected. In the research domain of handwriting recognition,
this writing style is called connected cursive, to indicate the difference between the phenomenon
of italic and sloppy appearance of individual letters and the phenomenon of connecting strokes
between letters, i.e., a letter-to-letter transition without a pen lift. The origin of the cursive method is associated
with practical advantages of writing speed and infrequent pen lifting to accommodate
the limitations of the quill. Quills are fragile, easily broken, and will
spatter unless used properly. Steel dip pens followed quills; they were
sturdier, but still had some limitations. The individuality of the provenance of a document
was a factor also, as opposed to machine font. Etymology
The term cursive derives from the 18th century Italian corsivo from Medieval Latin cursivus,
which means literally running. This term in turn derives from Latin currere. Cursive Arabic In the Arabic script, most letters of any
given word are joined to one another in a continuous flowing line. This flowing script inspired the cursive of
Medieval Latin, which in turn developed into the longhand script of English. Cursive Bengali In Bengali cursive script the letters are
more likely to be more curvy in appearance than in standard Bengali handwriting. Also, the horizontal supporting bar on each
letter runs continuously through the entire word, unlike in standard handwriting. This cursive handwriting often used by literature
experts, differs in appearance from the standard Bengali alphabet as it is free hand writing
similar to Japanese calligraphy, Where sometimes the alphabets are complex and appears different
from the standard handwriting. Roman Cursive Roman cursive is a form of handwriting used
in ancient Rome and to some extent into the Middle Ages. It is customarily divided into old cursive,
and new cursive. Old Roman cursive, also called majuscule cursive
and capitalis cursive, was the everyday form of handwriting used for writing letters, by
merchants writing business accounts, by schoolchildren learning the Latin alphabet, and even by emperors
issuing commands. New Roman cursive, also called minuscule cursive
or later Roman cursive, developed from old Roman cursive. It was used from approximately the 3rd century
to the 7th century, and uses letter forms that are more recognizable to modern eyes;
“a”, “b”, “d”, and “e” have taken a more familiar shape, and the other letters are proportionate
to each other rather than varying wildly in size and placement on a line. Cursive Greek The Greek alphabet has had several cursive
forms in the course of its development. In antiquity, a cursive form of handwriting
was used in writing on papyrus. It employed slanted and partly connected letter
forms as well as many ligatures. Some features of this handwriting were later
adopted into Greek minuscule, the dominant form of handwriting in the medieval and early
modern era. In the 19th and 20th centuries, an entirely
new form of cursive Greek, more similar to contemporary Western European cursive scripts,
was developed. English cursive Cursive writing was used in English before
the Norman conquest. Anglo-Saxon Charters typically include a boundary
clause written in Old English in a cursive script. A cursive handwriting style—secretary hand—was
widely used for both personal correspondence and official documents in England from early
in the 16th century. Cursive handwriting developed into something
approximating its current form from the 17th century, but its use was neither uniform,
nor standardized either in England itself or elsewhere in the British Empire. In the English colonies of the early 17th
century, most of the letters are clearly separated in the handwriting of William Bradford, though
a few were joined as in a cursive hand. In England itself, Edward Cocker had begun
to introduce a version of the French rhonde style, which was then further developed and
popularized throughout the British Empire in the 17th and 18th centuries as round hand
by John Ayers and William Banson. Back in the American colonies, on the eve
of their independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain, it is notable that Thomas Jefferson
joined most, but not all of the letters when drafting the United States Declaration of
Independence. However, a few days later, Timothy Matlack
professionally re-wrote the presentation copy of the Declaration in a fully joined, cursive
hand. Eighty-seven years later, in the middle of
the 19th century, Abraham Lincoln drafted the Gettysburg Address in a cursive hand that
would not look out of place today. Note that not all such cursive, then or now,
joined all of the letters within a word. In both the British Empire and the United
States in the 18th and 19th centuries, before the typewriter, professionals used cursive
for their correspondence. This was called a “fair hand”, meaning it
looked good, and firms trained their clerks to write in exactly the same script. In the early days of the post office, letters
were written in cursive — and to fit more text on a single sheet, the text was continued
in lines crossing at 90 degrees from the original text. Block letters were not suitable for this. Although women’s handwriting had noticeably
different particulars from men’s, the general forms were not prone to rapid change. In the mid-19th century, most children were
taught the contemporary cursive; in the United States, this usually occurred in second or
third grade. Few simplifications appeared as the middle
of the 20th century approached. After the 1960s, a movement originally begun
by Paul Standard in the 1930s to replace looped cursive with cursive italic penmanship resurfaced. It was motivated by the claim that cursive
instruction was more difficult than it needed to be: that conventional cursive was unnecessary,
and it was easier to write in cursive italic. Because of this, a number of various new forms
of cursive italic appeared, including Getty-Dubay, and Barchowsky Fluent Handwriting. With the advent of typewriters and computers,
cursive as a way of formalizing correspondence has fallen out of favor. Most tasks which would have once required
a “fair hand” are now done using word processing and a printer. However, western etiquette advocates the use
of longhand in personal notes to provide a sense that a real person is involved in the
correspondence. The teaching of cursive has been de-emphasized
in some public schools, but is still used for situations such as timed tests with large
writing portions, where it is considered faster by some. Also being able to write in a fair-hand is
still looked upon as a sign of literacy in many countries. In some countries, the quality of one’s cursive
is used to determine the appointment of public office. English cursive in the US On the 2006 SAT, a United States post-secondary
education entrance exam, only 15 percent of the students wrote their essay answers in
cursive. In a 2007 survey of 200 teachers of first
through third grades in all 50 American states, 90 percent of respondents said their schools
required the teaching of cursive. A 2008 nationwide survey found elementary
school teachers lacking formal training in teaching handwriting to students. Only 12 percent of teachers reported having
taken a course in how to teach it. In 2012, the American states of Indiana and
Hawaii announced that their schools will no longer be required to teach cursive, and instead
will be required to teach “keyboard proficiency”. As of 2011 the same was true of Illinois. Since the nation-wide proposal of the Common
Core State Standards in 2009, which do not include instruction in cursive, the standards
have been adopted by 44 states as of July 2011, all of which have debated whether to
augment them with cursive. California, Georgia, and Massachusetts have
added a cursive requirement to the national standards. In 2014 Tennessee mandated the reintroduction
of cursive in the curriculum for second through fourth grades beginning in the 2015-2016 school
year. Cursive Russian The Russian Cursive Cyrillic alphabet is used
when handwriting the modern Russian language. While several letters resemble Latin counterparts,
many of them represent different sounds. Most handwritten Russian, especially personal
letters and schoolwork, uses the cursive Russian alphabet. Most children in Russian schools are taught
in the 1st grade how to write using this Russian script. Cursive Chinese
Cursive forms of Chinese characters are used in calligraphy; “running script” is the semi-cursive
form and “grass script” is the cursive. The running aspect of this script has more
to do with the formation and connectedness of strokes within an individual character
than with connections between characters as in Western connected cursive. The latter are rare in Hanzi and the derived
Japanese Kanji characters which are usually well separated by the writer. See also
Examples Notes External links
Lessons in Calligraphy and Penmanship, including scans of classic nineteenth-century and early
twentieth-century manuals and examples The Golden Age of American Penmanship, including
scans of the January 1932 issue of Austin Norman Palmer’s American Penman
Normal and Bold Victorian Modern Cursive electronic fonts for downloading
Mourning the Death of Handwriting, a TIME Magazine article on the demise of cursive
handwriting Op-Art: The Write Stuff, a New York Times
article on the advantages of Italic hand over both full cursive and block printing
The Society for Italic Handwriting, supporters of teaching a simplified cursive hand
Cursive-Fonts, online resource for cursive fonts in ttf format
Has Technology Killed Cursive Handwriting?—Mashable, June 11, 2013